You know when you wake up in the morning with not wanting to be bothered by anything? The feeling of just wanting to get lost in a daydream, a good book or just spend the morning wandering around aimlessly not really doing anything but somehow time passes and the day begins without you.

This happens to the best of us and for me especially when I have deadlines to meet or a project that needs my attention. Don’t get me wrong, I love my projects but regardless of this I know myself and basically I don’t like to feel pressured into doing anything! Maybe this comes from many years of being self-employed and being my own boss but ultimately I do my best when my drive comes from within and the motivation is self initiated and I am feeling stress free and inspired.

So the trick here is to trick myself into doing what needs to be done without actually realising it. Just like now for example, I got up almost an hour ago with the feeling of ‘I must practice’ and I know my body will feel amazing afterwards but for whatever reason I have managed to avoid it with my other morning routine such as oil pulling and the distraction of posting on Instagram and checking my emails.

I even managed to roll out my mat, light some nice smelling incense, put on some inspiring music and I received this brainwave of inspiration to write this post! And so the morning slips away, the tightness in my body remains, the incense continues to burn and my empty mat is still waiting for me to join it. We are our biggest distraction, we allow ourselves to be drawn away from our innate needs and get sucked into our wants and desires or even the mundane and superficial distractions of our external environment. There is a fine line between all of this and I am fully certified at crossing the boundaries, dancing outside of these lines and blurring the technicolor edges.

So what to do? I have a very simple ‘to do’ list on my phone and as the projects mount up my list grows and of course there are the things which also need my attention but do not make it to the list. Hence the feeling of ‘I cant be bothered’ grows because by the time a few things from the ‘to do’ list are complete my focus and the feeling of motivation has began to fade.

One entrepreneur blog offer three helpful tips in order to train your brain and stay focused. Step 1: Do creative work first. Step 2: Allocate your time deliberately and step 3: Train your mind like a muscle.

In the past few weeks while venturing around Bali on a scooter while passing construction or road works there is a sign ‘Hati Hati’ which means something along the lines of ‘Slow Slow’ and even the locals say this when they see a foreigner battling with the traffic. So I have decided to take this approach to my morning practice and daily routine and this way I can create time to enjoy the distractions and focus on my projects which need my attention and if all goes well my practice will be a juicy ‘Hati Hati’ one regardless if I feel bothered or not!